It's a very good idea to not get alum in your mouth. As a grownup you really shouldn't need toxic chemical reminders.

The 06.01 PM post is a risible attempt to backtrack on what was a gratuitously-pointless remark as to the ethnicity of the people the post referred to. The remark could just as easily have been made, with the same force, without that reference. I'm sorry to have to say this, but when I was in Western Australia I came across this attitude routinely, much as I loved the people there. References to ethnicity other than to white settlers and their descendants were routinely in the vein "I'm not a racist, and this is these people's country, but..."